ALEOTTI, GIO
V. BATTISTA known as L'ARGENTA (from his birthplace)
B. in 1546, d. at Ferrara in 1636. Architect and treatise writer (he wrote on hydraulics), he carried out his activity in the service of Alfonso II d'Este and Clement VIII, at Ferrara and Parma, leaving there his greatest work in the Palladian Teatro Farnese. The church of S. Carlo at Ferrara is a typical document of his manner, composed of Venetian-Palladian elements, yet resolved into a heaviness of plastic masses that cancels out all their original meaning. Together with G. B. Magnani he provided the design for the church of S. Maria del Quartiere at Parma; the churches of S. Margherita and S. Barbara at Ferrara are attributed to him.BIBL.: Anon., s. V. in Thieme-Becker, I, pp. 252-53; L. N. Cittadella, Memorie intorno alla vita e alle opere dell'arch. G. B. A., Ferrara 1847; A. Ricci, Storia dell'architettura, III, Modena 1860, pp. 617-18; A. Venturi, Storia dell'arte, XI, III, Milano 1940, pp. 930, 935, 963-65. Maria Vittoria Brugnoli